First post hurrrr

[ThatRoundHeadedKid]

Hey guys. This will be my first post EVAR in this section...out of all the 2,500+ posts I've racked up over the years....

Anyway...just some background information....I have a 1994 Mercedes-Benz E320 Coupe that I bought (er....well...my mom bought...paid......OK she paid for it and got a loan for me under her name since I'm too young and so I owe her money) second hand.

Let me start off by saying...for a 3,550 lbs car with a DOHC 3.2 liter straight 6 heart (M104 baby woooo!) good for 217 hp and 229 lb ft...this car feels much faster than the Mercedes 0-60 time of 8.3 seconds suggests. Probably from the flatter torque curve from it's SOHC predecessor, the M103. And boy this car is a blast to drive in the bends and in a straight line (little too much body motion for me though...no Sportline package )

My car's dimensions are near to that of the E46 3er coupes, just a shady bit heavier.

So onto my race story(ies).

My best friend has an 06 Mazda RX8 and him and I duke it out at traffic lights quite a bit and do 2nd gear punches (as he calls them) on the highways.

Somethings puzzle me whenever I duke it out with him.

A few times I would be at a traffic light with him and I'd shift down into 2 on my gate (no 1st gear...only the Euros got that on top of a 1st gear start/2nd gear start option, 1st for performance, 2nd for economy and snow, and US cars only have 2nd). It's confusing about my transmission...it starts off in 1st like its supposed to but quickly shifts up to 2nd when accelerating normally and in D...but when I floor it and hit the kickdown, it stays in 1st, in D or 3 or 2, and when I have it in 2, it stays in first until redline when I accelerate off the line, gradual or hard.

Anyway, when we continue on racing, either my friend sucks at shifting or somethings wrong. Because for the first little bit during the race until about 50 or so MPH...I ride up right along with him neck and neck (assuming that we have a near-perfect start) and then he slowly starts pulling away....

Knowing that he has a much faster car with much more potential...I would have expected him to be car lengths ahead.

For most of the traffic light drags, he's beaten me..I've only beaten him once or twice and he never gives me a straight answer as to why (Ohh I shifted wrong etc etc) by a few inches.

In 2nd gear punches on the highway though...I'm just a loser there....again one or two instances where I've come ahead...but the rest are all his. What we would do is we would slow down to about 50 or so MPH...maybe less, shift into 2nd, then gun it. And with my 4-speed auto cog switcher, my gear limits are pretty interesting I believe due to a high-ratio differential that my car comes with.

1st gear limit is like around 40 mph.
2nd gear limit is at around 73 mph.
3rd gear limit is at around 120 mph
And my car flat out, with out the 134 limiter kicking (actually made it there!) in is probably around 150 MPH. Not bad for 1994.

I'd be neck and neck with him for about a few long seconds but then he'd be pulling away gradually.

As for what we could do flat out, we both still have to find out. He has not yet topped out his car and flat out, I can do 134 with the limiter.

I have beaten though an early 2000s Ford Focus SVT I think...It may have been a ZXT but it was lightly modded so it was a little difficult to tell. That was when I was with my best friend with the RX and another who has a Scion tC with exhaust upgrades (was at his beach house in Long Beach Island) and his friend had the Focus. We were in the middle of the Pine Barrens where no cops and no traffic resides...roads are so straight and empty, anyone in Jersey should know of them...such a blast to drive fast on them (hah that rhymes, unintentionally). We were doing 1/4 drags by odometer reading.

Also beat my friend in his Scion, in which it always sounded like he was shifting too early for proper performance.

And that's about it.

Sorry about the hyperness in my post...I had a little sugar which is why I'm not sleeping at this hour (3 am here in Jersey).

If anyone is interested in the geeky stuff about my car (heheheh), I've put together a little statistics list about it:

-Year: 1994
-Make: Mercedes-Benz LLC. of Daimler-Benz Motoren-Gesellschaft
-Manufactured In: Sindelfingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
-Class: E-Klasse Einspritzung
-Model: E320
-Chassis Number: W124.052
-Engine Model: M104.992
-Engine Type: Bosch Electronic HFM-SFI (Hot-Film Mass Air Flow Sensor, Sequential Fuel Injection) with integrated ignition DOHC (Dual Overhead Camshaft) Inline-6 with 4 valves per cylinder
-Displacement: 3.2 Liter/3,199 cc/195 cu in
-Output: 217 bhp @ 5,500 RPM/229 ft-lbs @ 3,750 RPM
-Engine Redline: 6,400
-Compression Ratio: 10.0:1
-Transmission Type: ZF Transmission with Limited Slip Rear Differential
-Number of Gears: 4
-Transmission Model: 722.369
-Front suspension: Independent damper MacPherson struts with separate coil springs and gas-pressurized shock absorbers, triangular lower control arms with antidive geometry and stabilizer bar
-Rear suspension: Independent 5-arm multilink with separate single-tube gas-pressurized shock absorbers and coil springs, geometry for antilift, antisquat and alignment control, stabilizer bar
-Brakes: 2-circuit hydraulic power-assisted 4-wheel discs. Antilock Braking System (ABS)
-Wheelbase: 106.9 in
-Curb Weight: 3,550 lb

And of course, my baby

Pics are from March 07, when I just got it.

[silentscreams85]

Well i dont know much about either car, but i would think you run pretty even off the line because of the nice torque advantage you have. The RX8 seems like a peaky top end motor so I would see why from 2nd gear he takes you. Nice car Btw.

[subieskier]

Nice car and nice pics. The only mod I can think of might be to change that rear axle ratio -- might be the best bang for your buck.

[acorn42047]

It's a benz gotta ride slow, show it off a little. The RX might be faster but it's hard to beat a Mercedes. German engineering is the shit!

[79Bandit]

dang that car is clean.

[Musashi3000GT]

Well you dont seem to know much about racing or mechanics from what I can tell. First off why are you even messing with the shifter? its an automatic! just leave it in D and brake-launch it.
Its been proven time and time again that manually shifting and automatic box dossent do shit. just punch the gas and let the autobox sort it out. if anything all that manual shifting might be damaging the tranny. like neutral dropping and force downing, it'll rip the trans up.

Do you really think the Germans who designed that car are back in doichland are racing round the back roads going " sig shitzle Frauz, vie carefull withs zat corner comming up!"
"Nain Hans, dont vorry! I cans down shift zee car vit zee auto stick thingie unt make the corner"
Da!
da!

secondly RX-8s are not drag racers! Thats like the one thing they where most deffenetly not made for. In fact I think the dessigners and engineers purpously made it anti-drag-race. Its amazing at everything else though, your friend is really putting a good car to good waste. He should be autocrossing or road racing that car instead of doing light to light runs.
My hommie G mad dog tight bro foe life has a RX-8. You should look him up on these forums, goes by the name of Gotian. sick fucking racer too, maybe he can give your friend a few pointers.

[ThatRoundHeadedKid]

Originally Posted by Musashi3000GT

Well you dont seem to know much about racing or mechanics from what I can tell. First off why are you even messing with the shifter? its an automatic! just leave it in D and brake-launch it.
Its been proven time and time again that manually shifting and automatic box dossent do shit. just punch the gas and let the autobox sort it out. if anything all that manual shifting might be damaging the tranny. like neutral dropping and force downing, it'll rip the trans up.

Do you really think the Germans who designed that car are back in doichland are racing round the back roads going " sig shitzle Frauz, vie carefull withs zat corner comming up!"
"Nain Hans, dont vorry! I cans down shift zee car vit zee auto stick thingie unt make the corner"
Da!
da!

secondly RX-8s are not drag racers! Thats like the one thing they where most deffenetly not made for. In fact I think the dessigners and engineers purpously made it anti-drag-race. Its amazing at everything else though, your friend is really putting a good car to good waste. He should be autocrossing or road racing that car instead of doing light to light runs.
My hommie G mad dog tight bro foe life has a RX-8. You should look him up on these forums, goes by the name of Gotian. sick fucking racer too, maybe he can give your friend a few pointers.

If its anyone who's against drag racing...trust me...if you knew me I'd be the first person that would come to your mind.

The stores I just posted are of times that we just fuck around.

I tell him plenty to take his car to a track, especially since he's 18 now and old enough.

I had the chance to take an RX8 around a track for an entire day ata Skip Barber racing school in CT, Lime Rock Raceway corporate event that my dad an I were invited to by my his best friend. Trust me...I know that neither my car or his are meant' for drag racing...

We were just fucking around.

As for keeping my shifter in D, when I feel like spirited driving in the back roads I use the shift gate a lot since my car's auto cog switcher actually holds gear.

As for acceleration purposes...I do notice some performance differences and I use it for smoother driving since flooring it and hitting the kickdown switch actually yields harsher downshifts as opposed to just downshifting.

The guys over at the W124 section in BenzWorld have nothing against using the shift gate since Mercedes actually advertised manual shifting with their auto boxes.

[Musashi3000GT]

Oh Im not against street racing, not at all. I do it all the time.
Im just saying and RX-8 drag racing is not its ideal purpose.

As for the autobox manual shifting i dont know man. an auto is and auto. its supposed to shift by itself. Ive only driven a few manumatics and none of them made a difference. Maybe in road racing yes cause you wanna hold gears through a bend. (nothing more anoying then to fall off the power band right before the exit) but in drag racing you dont need to hold a gear so why manu-shift?

[ThatRoundHeadedKid]

Originally Posted by Musashi3000GT

Oh Im not against street racing, not at all. I do it all the time.
Im just saying and RX-8 drag racing is not its ideal purpose.

As for the autobox manual shifting i dont know man. an auto is and auto. its supposed to shift by itself. Ive only driven a few manumatics and none of them made a difference. Maybe in road racing yes cause you wanna hold gears through a bend. (nothing more anoying then to fall off the power band right before the exit) but in drag racing you dont need to hold a gear so why manu-shift?

US-Spec Mercedes' back in the day, even today have what's called 2nd-gear start...its for economy and snow. The car usually starts off in 2nd gear...unless you hit the kickdown which then triggers a downshift...but messes up acceleration where as if I had it in 2....it would hold first gear....its weird

[lamehonda]

Do whatever yields the best time

[Chiquae07]

well, make it start out in 1st, and shift it into 2nd then, and so on. just dont shift down, and you will be fine. all your doing is limiting the auto from shifting into a higher gear. ive been shifing my auto sentra ever since i bought it, so its held its own with me manualling shifting the auto.

[6Cobalt]

Mmmm... actually.
If he's driving an auto, he shouldn't launch it in Drive. Drive usually has your traction-control option turned on. Launch it in the towing gears. Two reasons: the towing gears usually shift faster, and there's no traction control.
TC will mess you up because it slows the car down to keep the wheels from spinning. I launch my car in 'I' then shift it to drive. Best results that way. Just gotta remember to shift back into 'I' to stop (so i get engine braking)
You could try to get someone to mess with your computer and get the shift-timing altered. Not always a good idea though because it can make the shifts alot rougher. Pal cracked a mount doing that.

RX-anythings are not drag racers. They are meant to take corners like monsters from hell. They can surely take off and run, but if you launch right, you've probably got him until you get into the higher RPMs, when his motor starts kicking out full performance.
As for the 'neck and neck' maybe he's just messing with you? I do it to my buddies Saturn all the time. He really thinks he's getting somewhere, then he forgets that my pedal is still 2 inches from the floor...

I hate not having any empty roads around here. Last time i tried to a redlight run with my friends, we blew the doors off a cop car at 110mph. He was kinda mad. We all kinda got in ALOT of trouble. Funny story around the group though.

[ThatRoundHeadedKid]

I have said already, I know the RX8's primary purpose isn't for drag racing and for that I'd get something with a big engine and a live rear axle. lol

Like aforementioned, we just fuck around with each other at traffic lights. i just wanted to share my experience.

And I'm fluent with how my car works to get the best out of all of that.

Just did a 0-60 in 8.29 seconds the other day, and by factory it was rated at 8.3. just good to know my car's still fresh.